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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that "middle class" has become a derogatory term

285 replies

hijk · 16/02/2015 12:57

and actually, most people aren't actually part of any class, really, they are just individuals who make their own way in the world.

OP posts:
Original poster
hijk · 17/02/2015 14:58

What has grammar schools got to do with being middle class?

Again, if attending a grammar school is part of the definition, why look down on someone who has attended, or is attending or who wants DC to go to one?

Do you start being middle class if you go? Do you stop being middleclass if you get expelled?

OP posts:
FreeButtonBee · 17/02/2015 14:59

Chippy upstarts only annoy people when they are chippy...

Babycham1979 · 17/02/2015 14:59

Freebuttonbee, you're absolutely right; I envying non-British people for being free of all this baggage. It's so insidious, we're almost unaware that it exists. That said, I've always believed pure racism is less prevalent here, because we have class instead. An African prince would always have been accepted into the upper echelons of society than a white British tradesman.

Funny you mention the City. It always strikes me when I'm around there for a drink after work that all the men are identical and absolutely vile. No matter where they're from in the world, they quickly adapt to fit the same boorish, smug, self-satisfied middle-class mould. A glance around any office or bar in the Square Mile of 'The Wharf', and you're presented with hundreds of identikit tosses in matching blue suits and divers' watches, all braying about house-prices and Chamonix.

Original poster
hijk · 17/02/2015 14:59

I don't think those are middle class people you are mixing with- I think they are what is known in the trade as "bastards".....

I agree with this, there is nothing "MC" about this attitude, and nothing "unMC" about the poster.

OP posts:
Hakluyt · 17/02/2015 15:00

No- you're already middle class if you go to a grammar school. Because they are the only ones who get in.

LurkingHusband · 17/02/2015 15:00

Do you start being middleclass if you buy your council property?

Be curious to know how many (if any) people there are who voted Labour until they bought their council house.

Mrs Thatcher (apparently) had a view that if you treated people as middle class, they voted middle class (i.e. Tory). A fact Ken Livingstone (in "If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It") not only acknowledges, but grudgingly admires her for.

His view is that pre-Thatcher, society was pyramid-shaped, and the workers (bottom third) could outvote the middle and to tiers, but that part of Thatchers legacy was to leave society egg-shaped. Where the middle class cannot be outvoted.

Original poster
hijk · 17/02/2015 15:00

Why would they be the only ones that get in?

OP posts:
MrsDeVere · 17/02/2015 15:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Babycham1979 · 17/02/2015 15:01

Hijk, grammar schools undermine middle class entrenchment because they recognise ability. The media and politics are full of 60s grammar school kids from working class backgrounds. Far cosier to allocate school places based on fees and house prices instead; that way the status quo is protected.

WiltsWonder15 · 17/02/2015 15:06

The middle classes have, to me, always been defined by a deep-seated insecurity based on the knowledge that what they have is down to luck rather than ability. That's enough to keep anyone awake at night, and it's at the core of modern politics. House prices are artificially inflated and grammar schools kept to a minimum because any other approach would severely jeopardise the cushy position of middle Englanders.

Ah, the old "you are lucky and lacking ability" vs. "I am talented and unlucky" dichotomy, necessary to prop up much left-wing envy.

Nowt wrong with wanting to maintain what you have or increase it. Any fool can be uncomfortable.

Hakluyt · 17/02/2015 15:09

"Why would they be the only ones that get in?"

Because the last time a genuinely working class child got into a grammar school was in 1957. And they soon sorted that out by making the uniform more expensive.

Babycham1979 · 17/02/2015 15:09

Wiltswoman, nope; I'm talented and I've been very lucky and I'd be the first to admit it. If it all comes crashing down, I couldn't care less, though. I'll pick myself up and start again. That's not necessarily an option for people who've ever had to do that or never had to make do with nothing.

Original poster
hijk · 17/02/2015 15:10

Hijk, grammar schools undermine middle class entrenchment because they recognise ability. The media and politics are full of 60s grammar school kids from working class backgrounds. Far cosier to allocate school places based on fees and house prices instead; that way the status quo is protected.

Babysham, I agree with you, but Hakluyt said only middleclass children go to grammar school.

I disagree very strongly that only middleclass children go to grammar school, that is not my experience at all.

OP posts:
LurkingHusband · 17/02/2015 15:10

Why would they be the only ones that get in?

Weeeeeeeeellll what happened to "Labour" after Mrs Thatcher. They had to get Blair and go all "we luuuuuurve the middle classes" to get a shot of power.

The only way Labour could - and can - get into power is to be Tory-lite.

I'm old enough to remember Clause IV. I can't say I agreed with it, but right now, it seems eminently preferable to the clusterfuck of our railways, power companies and telecoms providers gouging us with ever higher prices and ever lower service.

I doubt Miliband ever knew what Clause IV was - possibly a naice bistro just off Islington High Street.

Hakluyt · 17/02/2015 15:10

"The media and politics are full of 60s grammar school kids from working class backgrounds. "

Name me some. This is one of the great myths of our time.

LurkingHusband · 17/02/2015 15:11

I use MC as a descriptive term. Not as a pejorative one.

Try doing that with other words Hmm

SunnyBaudelaire · 17/02/2015 15:11

I am afraid I agree with Hak, the only people who get into grammar school today are m/c through and through, with pushy parents and private tutors.

SunnyBaudelaire · 17/02/2015 15:12

Lurking H., I love that word 'clusterfuck' it is superb

LurkingHusband · 17/02/2015 15:12

not really an x-post. More a fuckup Grin. Apologies hijk for answering a question you didn't ask.

Hakluyt · 17/02/2015 15:12

"I disagree very strongly that only middleclass children go to grammar school, that is not my experience at all."

Then your experience must be from another planet.

Original poster
hijk · 17/02/2015 15:12

Because the last time a genuinely working class child got into a grammar school was in 1957. And they soon sorted that out by making the uniform more expensive.

It is no more expensive than any other uniform round here, most of it you can get from ASDA.

i think you are mistaken about that. I live on a council estate, my DC are in grammar school, as are several other children from the estate, council tenants, FSM, refugee, etc, all groups go, if they are in the top band academically.

OP posts:
Original poster
hijk · 17/02/2015 15:14

Then your experience must be from another planet. or just a different educational authority, maybe? There are no barriers to anyone getting into grammar school here, apart from the 11+

OP posts:
Hakluyt · 17/02/2015 15:14

What's the %, for example of FSM children in your children's grammar school?

Babycham1979 · 17/02/2015 15:15

Hakluyt, how about John Humphries, Joan Bakewell, Michael Portillo, Edwina Currie, David Attenborough etc etc etc

TwiceForkedLightningTree · 17/02/2015 15:15

I am trying to get across that it is about opportunities and expectations more than anything else, but wealth is the start because it defines what you can do. may not be making much sense as I'm tired.

You don't get opportunities and experiences without wealth. Try asking any poor person about the experiences they have not had. I know people who've never had foreign holidays in their lives, who have not had any holiday for 5 years or more. Who, possibly more to the point, have not been able to take full advantage of education because of their low wealth and have then spent the first 10 years of their adult life catching up to where others started from. Eg the inability to buy books and supplies. Never mind having extras for music lessons and so on. Of course in these families, because parents weren't given these things the tend to have a low opinion on them, which further influences low educational expectations and achievements. Add having to live in a bad area so the local schools are bad and the nearest library is 10 miles away, where you choke on the exhaust fumes of the rich rushing past you in their cars every day. All of these define your worldview and define what you think you can successfully do as an adult.

Perhaps struggling to pay bills etc is a fairly normal experience at some point. Now imagine that that is the norm, that you've never experienced anything else. Middle class people tend to think they can be more successful and they can do more things, because they always have done. Working class get stuck into a learned helplessness.

Then you get down to the deprived underclasses, where the only people with any wealth and status are the drug dealers, and hey presto a life of crime beckons.